Belt systems are used in various industrial heating processes for heat treating articles. These industrial heating applications typically incorporate convective or radiant heaters on one side of the belt apparatus, which heat the belt and in turn heat articles placed on the belt. Such processes have various disadvantages. Generally, such belts are non-conducting or insulating. This insulating effect requires the conductive heaters to be run at undesirably high temperatures in order to achieve the target temperature for treating the article, resulting in a waste of energy and higher processing costs. In addition, these excess temperatures result in belt degradation and, as a result, shorter equipment life cycles.
As such, many typical heating processes suffer from deficiencies such as excess energy usage and belt degradation. Therefore improved heatable components, heating belts, and industrial heating systems are desirable.